The President's proposed budget cuts add up to $4 trillion over 10 years

The White House released to the Washington Postwhat amounts to an opening bid for fiscal slope/grand bargain talks. It turns out that this is actually just what was in the President’s proposed 2013 budget. But since it does add up to $4 trillion over 10 years, and since everyone’s getting serious about negotiations, we can take a closer look at it.

The major component is tax increases:

Obama plans to open talks using his most recent budget proposal, which sought to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy by $1.6 trillion over the next decade, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday. That’s double the sum that House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) offered Obama during secret debt negotiations in 2011 [...]

“We know what a truly balanced approach to our fiscal challenges looks like,” (White House Press Secretary Jay) Carney said. “The president has put forward a very specific plan that will be what he brings to the table when he sits down with congressional leaders.”

Kevin Drum actually itemizes this. Basically, it includes letting the Bush-era tax rates above $250,000 expire AND a series of deduction limits, loophole closures, a reversion of the estate tax, and the Buffett rule.

So that’s the tax side of the equation. It’s twice as much as what was offered at the outset in the 2011 grand bargain talks, and it’s in line with Bowles-Simpson in terms of using the expired Bush-era tax rates on the wealthy as a baseline. And the President insisted to progressive leaders at the White House yesterday that he would continue with the plan to let those top marginal tax rates expire. The idea of substituting tax rate increases with something that uses deduction limits to raise taxes on the rich isn’t catching on in the White House. Even Tim Geithner said no to that yesterday, along with Bob Rubin. Geithner basically said that the math wouldn’t add up without increasing those top rates.

But there was more in the Obama budget request, enough to add up to $4 trillion in total budget cuts:

Obama’s 2013 budget sought to reduce borrowing over the next 10 years by about $4 trillion, counting $1.1 trillion in agency cuts already in force. In addition to raising taxes, Obama proposed to slice $340 billion from health-care programs and to count about $1 trillion in savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here’s that 2013 budget. The two important things here: 1) the budget counts the spending cap from the debt limit deal as part of deficit reduction, which it is; 2) it uses war savings, which amounts to an accounting maneuver, as deficit reduction in this context. Basically, CBO scores what you spend on a war in the current fiscal year as constant over a ten-year period, so you can authorize reductions and “save” the money.

Which means that the only new cuts would be the $340 billion from health care programs. It’s hard to find, but you can take a look at them here. It’s mostly cuts to providers, not cuts to benefits. The White House describes it as changes “to make these programs more effective and efficient and move our health system to one that rewards high-quality medicine.”

There are other cuts and consolidations in the 2013 budget, but what we have actually gets you to $4 trillion: $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $340 billion in health care program savings, $1 trillion in war funding savings, and $1.1 trillion in baked-in cuts from the debt limit deal. Even if those numbers don’t save quite as much as envisioned in the 2013 budget, you can count savings on debt service and you’re probably above $4 trillion.

The White House calls it $2.50 in spending cuts for every $1 in new revenue. But in terms of what would be newly passed into law, you’re talking about nearly $5 of new REVENUE for every $1 of spending cuts.

UPDATE: I would just add that, if Republicans immediately surrendered and put this into law, it would be bad news for the public. The payroll tax cut wouldn’t be extended (we don’t know how extended unemployment benefits factor into this). The small spending cuts and larger tax hikes would have an impact, though a mild one since they’re clustered around the rich. And the spending cap lowers discretionary public investment to the lowest percentage of the economy since the Eisenhower era, which is nothing to be proud of. Maintaining the spending cap actually looks like the worst part of this. This would absolutely create a drag on GDP of at least 1%, for no discernible reason, since we’re not in a debt crisis.

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to “Obama’s Opening Bid: His FY2013 Budget Request”

[I]t’s becoming hauntingly clear that Obama is perhaps dangerously close to making many of the same mistakes again.

they show that they still think a homeless person sleeping under a bridge is a sign of a broken system, not a perfectly-functioning one. Of course, good theory predicts they will not likely see this — certainly not anytime soon.

” … if the Republicans immediately surrendered and put this into law, it would be bad news for the public.”

Yes, it would, DDay, without question, without doubt.

Now, where are the voices who shouted the rest of us down when we suggested that Obama was “more effective” at slashing the safety net?

Are they all “good” with this bad news, do they think Obama is right?

Now, you folks who said we had “no choice” … but to vote for Obama, now then, where is your voice, your concern, even your outrage?

Where might you be? Where is your energy, your vehemence, your certainty?

Now is the real time, the right and necessary time, for you (and you know who you are, here at fdl), to stand up, to be counted, to be heard.

To put a finer “point” on it, where now, are those loud voices which blamed those who voted for Nader for “Bush” (whom SCOTUS, NOT the voters put Bush-Cheney into power,btw)?

By YOUR very own, oft repeated “measure”, THIS … “Obama”, and whatever harm he does, is on YOUR shoulders, is, essentially, your responsibility … let there be no question about that, and let none of you, ever, say, “Gee, how are we going to get his attention?” That would be disingenuous, and funny, were it not such farcical tragedy.

There is no pleasure, for me, in the saying of this, for it is merely and only the truth …

Those who promoted Obama, either as a “business” (as in “this is not a democracy, it is a business”) or from a ballyhooed “practical political perspective”, have both a moral and a social obligation to either sway Obama’s cruelty, to seek to temper his destruction of civil society and the rule of law, or accept the consequences of what happens as their very own …

How quickly have the Obama supporters gone from crowing to silence … one hopes, for everyone’s sake that the Obama “crew” might find their conscience, their voices, and their place at the oars … it is only pragmatic, practical, and prudent that they do so.

I’m okay with the payroll tax cuts expiring. The longer that Social Security is tied to the general fund the easier it will be for future negotiations to include it when discussing deficit reduction.

The WH should find another way to provide the “stimulus.” If I remember correctly the making work pay credit actually had more bang for the bottom of the income bracket(although it won’t do a thing for long term unemployed.)

All in all it could be way worse, and I expect it to be before there is some grand consensus that they’ve sufficiently made both sides unhappy and call it good enough.

Of course none of this is achievable unless the power of corporate influence and money is curtailed via constitutional amendment in the political process. To hell with Mitch, Bonehead, Grover and the plethora of corporate beholding politicians, (asselephants) holding America hostage.

America once built things that reduced the cost of transportation by 95%, benefiting the republic and the governed. Now America, via its government protects the extraction of one’s life and liberty, for another’s profit, while corporate media distracts the governed with camel dung….

This is really stupid. Even Rubin was essentially to the left of Obama here, suggesting “budgetary room for public investment and a moderate upfront jobs package”, and deferring cuts into the future. Duh.

if the Republicans immediately surrendered and put this into law, it would be bad news for the public.”

I dispute this. I think this is actually not bad news at all; it’s actually far better news than I ever dared expect. Of course, the proof is whether Obama and the Dems will stick to their guns and yield to a “bipartisan-y” moment.

One, I think that the payroll tax should go. It weakens SS funding and thus becomes ammunition for those who want to gut “strengthen” SS. I am disappointed that there are no proposals that truly strengthen SS, like removing the cap and extending the payroll tax to other forms in income. In regards to the other proposals, they of course could be better as well–but given the comparison of this proposal versus Obama’s near-total sellout of 2011 which almost happened but didn’t only because of Tea Party intransigence–well, there’s just no comparison. This is FAR better.

As for the discretionary spending cap, yeah, that’s a potential drag and not a good point, but that depends what we spend it on. And I do not believe that we need continued deficits to fuel the economy, we just need more spending, period, even if it is counterbalanced by taxes on the rich. My disagreement is with the argument that taxes stifle growth; only taxes on lower-income earners do that, taxes on high-income earners actually *boost* the economy, not depress it, as those high earners react by either taking less (allowing that income to go to others) or spending more (to knock down their incomes to a lower tax rate).

The real test of whether this is real or not will come in February, when another debt ceiling vote is needed, and of course the Repugs will take that hostage. Will Obama and the Dems cave once again? Or will he invoke the 14th amendment, or mint a $20 trillion coin, and end that nonsense?

DW, thanks for putting my thoughts into words much more eloquently than I could. My feeling is that if this is truly the budget that o wants, why didn’t he start with bigger goals. If he truly wants to help the 99% (I don’t think he really does) he should have asked for more in our favor. What he did ask for will be bargained away so that we are stuck with what the repugs wanted anyway. o’s supporters will rely on the old repugs were undermining him and he couldn’t do what he really wanted to do.

BTW, I didn’t realize that the repugs’s oath of office was to support grover norquist, not the Constitution.

“Cave” should always be put inside quotation marks, stewartm, whenever Barack Obama is the subject of a sentence, as well as with the term, “Democrats”, whether subject or object … “Cave” suggests “capitulation”, “duress”, “pressure”, even “necessity” … Obama does exactly what he wishes to do … and those who continue to support him, believing that he is “forced” to “give in” or “give up” are fooled again and again.

It is not necessary to fool ALL of the people, it is sufficient to fool the same ones … over and over again.

“What we spent it on” is wars and a “bailout” … what we squandered it on was the off-shoring of jobs, the elevation of money to being a god and corporations to being “people”.

“Currency” is not merely money, it is also trust, it is conscience … and we, as a “civil” society, as a nation of human beings, are impoverished on all of those levels and the consequences which shall attend that “calculated” and deliberately inflicted “poverty” will be crushing, catastrophic, and complete …

Do you really imagine that neo-liberalism, embraced by the entire political class, which includes the media, as well as Barack Obama and the “Democrats”, will bow to either the Constitution or a coin of “conscience”?

“. . . 2) it uses war savings, which amounts to an accounting maneuver, as deficit reduction in this context.”

Well, that is putting it . . . mildly. A more accurate description than “accounting maneuver” might be “bullshit.”

Also, the 2013 budget leaves the Department of Defense virtually untouched with a mere 1% reduction in base spending. By comparison, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program got cut by about 13%. These represent the Obama Administration’s priorities.

The cost of the departments and programs directly related to war, surveillance and torture, specifically the DoD, VA, OCO, DoHS, and the NIP, is well over $1 trillion. This cost does not include many other war-related expenses like nuclear weapons, war debt, and the mercenary and contractor insurance policies paid by the Department of Labor, for example. War takes up a good 75% of the US discretionary budget.

I thought Dday’s “update” was the most important element of this post. You nailed it with this:

My disagreement is with the argument that taxes stifle growth; only taxes on lower-income earners do that, taxes on high-income earners actually *boost* the economy, not depress it, as those high earners react by either taking less (allowing that income to go to others) or spending more (to knock down their incomes to a lower tax rate).

Actually, the latest empirical research published in various peer-reviewed journals, such as NBER and JEL, including by Christina Romer and her spouse, shows that higher marginal income tax rates on the wealthy have virtually no discernible effect on economic growth because, and this is key, higher rates do not cause material changes in “real” economic behavior by the wealthy. Income-shifting (postponing, accelerating) and investment-shifting (e.g., more or less from capital gains) do not in reality cause real changes in economic impact because the wealthy continue to receive their gigantic incomes regardless of minor wrinkles in tax policy.

And as one Firepup noted last night, this daunting $1.6 Trillion in new tax revenues from the wealthy is really only one percent of GDP over the next ten years. It’s a tiny wrinkle for the wealthy. Not even a speed bump under their Ferraris.

And “dangerously close to making many of the same mistakes again” is tragically delusional. The title of the linked article says it best, although far too weakly: “Already? Obama Tells Supporters to Expect ‘Bitter Pills’” “Already?”?! No shit. But why the surprise? This is what those who voted for Obama requested.

Indeed the payroll tax cut should expire, and Bear Country’s point at #17 is exactly the issue. Obama will NEVER ask for more than he’ll get as far as promoting, truly promoting, progressive policies because those are exactly the policies neither party wants to talk about – they are all about reframing the debate, just as David keeps doing here with the payroll tax cut, promoting that as a forward looking idea when actually it is a clear debate changer with respect to Social Security. This kind of false argument is shape-shifting and will be more of the same from this more of the same White House. They are going to keep at it till everything collapses, so all you folk out there that were going to make him do it on progressive issues, do please strap on your running shoes and start up your tractors. I hope you have more success with him than we did with you.

It is not necessary to fool ALL of the people, it is sufficient to fool the same ones … over and over again.

DWBartoo, you do realize that I voted for Jill Stein in 2012, and Green Party down the ticket, because of what I felt was Obama’s and the Dems’ betrayals? In fact, I had recently forwarded the leaked 2011 agreement that Obama signed off on to some “Obamacrats” in the full expectation that only a slightly tweaked version of that would be pro-offered up for the lame duck. So no, I’m not an Obamacrat; I am hardly enthralled by the man.

But this is hands-down better. And it surprises me. Yes, we all could improve on it. But the frustrating thing (I thought) about Obama was not that he was a progressive (he’s not) but that you couldn’t even trust him to back even the mildly progressive things he campaigned on, the things he said he was for, like the public option. Obama won in 2008 and 2012 and the Dems went down in flames in 2010 because Candidate Obama was far more popular than President Obama (his big mistake in the first debate is that he slipped into *President* Obama mode instead of Candidate Obama, and most people don’t care for President Bipartisanship; unlike the Beltway Punditry they don’t have a fetish for bipartisanship for its own sake).

This, while not ideal, at least meshes with what he said during the campaign. That is an improvement over the past. And if he sticks with it, that would also be an improvement. I have criticized Obama, the Dems in general, and the liberal Veal Pen over the past several years, but I am willing to credit them when they improve.

I suspect one of the reasons there is such a small impact on the economy as a whole is because the money that they paid in taxes would only end up parked in a bank account or spent on a stock that is held for a mere 22 seconds at a time.

I’ve always found it odd that the left did not counter the narrative that the rich are the ones who create jobs. It’s not like a bunch of rich shlubs are frequenting Walmart. Demand creates jobs, and money that is parked in a bank account does very little in terms of growing our economy.

During the debate about how to proceed with getting progressive policies implemented there were two factions, one faction has completely broken with the Democratic party, we don’t believe it can be reformed because we don’t believe the people at the top genuinely want to reform it. The second set said that a third party option was unrealistic and that it’s be easier to reform from within the party. Juliana’s point is that it’s time for that second set of people who called us purists and insisted that this was going to be the easier route to get progressive policies implemented to start doing the hard work they insisted was the key to getting progressive policy.

Congratulations, you pulled a broken system across the finish line. Now you either get to fix it or face the consequences next election cycle when people look at you oddly when you talk about reform from within the party system we have.

We were expecting the age on Medicare and Social Security to be offered up(and it may still be) so yeah I get where you are coming from on this.

I’d be willing to give him some faint praise if the damage for the bottom were limited to this in the “grand bargain.” I doubt it will be though. This is what I suspect he told the progressive coalition that he wants. I suspect what he tells business leaders will be a bit different. I’d bet dollars to donuts that he’s tailoring his messaging to his audience.

Words, stewartm. are one thing, ACTION and actual RESULTS, are quite something else.

Methinks you too readily anticipate “change”, yet I sincerely hope that you might be right.

In point of fact, however, Obama has not actually changed from “Austerity” which continues to benefit the few, as his proposed tax “changes” for the “top” makes clear, to either economic justice, in holding the fraudsters to account, or to ensuring honest prosperity for the many … anything short of those things, is “more of the same” … and nothing else.

So long as Obama speaks about “deficit” rather than the need and necessity of rebuilding this nation’s manufacturing base and its infrastructure, and of resurrecting its legal and educational systems, it is too damned little and fresh gilded bullshit … all neoconnish “delights” … with an artificial cherry on top.

(Good on you for voting as you did, I urge you to keep it up, as the struggle has only begun.)

Yes one could say you are right it isn’t as bad a deal as we might have feared but remember this is is opening bid. We have been on a “fiscal slope” that will increase in grade for most of the 99% after this grand bargain is implemented in it’s final form and a De pression will result. Austerity can’t work and most of us can’t even absorb the next health insurance premium increase this Jan. I will need to cut expenses again to deal with another significant increase and I’m in the happy middle middle class that have jobs and a above water home.

do not in reality cause real changes in economic impact because the wealthy continue to receive their gigantic incomes regardless of minor wrinkles in tax policy.

In some ways I agree, but from what I have observed in my life and work experience is when taxes on corporations and wealthy people are low, they give themselves more and plow the money into the paper economy of Wall Street. When they hare high, they reduce their incomes voluntarily by taking less for themselves and (for businesses) plowing more income back into *REAL* investments like plant and capital improvements. That’s why I view higher taxes on the rich as something that is positive. (High wages also actually fuel growth, not only in providing more spending and demand, but by focusing business on implementing technological improvements to become more efficient. That’s why slave and low-income societies never became technological or economic powerhouses. When it’s always cheaper to use more slaves or more serfs, you never have any incentive to develop improved technology).

And in general, even if you take $1 out of the economy, and spend that $1 on things like relief for the poor and unemployed, or on infrastructure improvements and other investments, you have a multiplier effect of at least 1.5x. Ergo, even a balanced budget can provide stimulus if the spending is focused on the right things. (Tax cuts for the rich lose $1 and get only 25 cents back in stimulative return–at most–by contrast).

Words, stewartm. are one thing, ACTION and actual RESULTS, are quite something else.

Yep, heartily agree. True of Obama, and true of the other Dems as well. We’ll just have to see. They could fold like cheap lawn furniture at the first whiff of Republican intransigence, and for all I know that may be their plan.

But heck, in the past, it was the pre-compromise compromise. At least we’re not getting that.

We were expecting the age on Medicare and Social Security to be offered up(and it may still be) so yeah I get where you are coming from on this.

That, and even worse. The fact that Obama wasn’t talking about the tax rates and that he might go along with “revenue increases” from cutting loopholes (funny, for all those who suggest this option, ever notice that after the upper rates get slashed, all those loopholes manage to find their way back into the tax code after a few years…funny that?). The 2011 deal slashed the top rates down to 28 % while gutting the safety net. It was *gawd awful*.

What relatively little we disagree on, we do so with amity and respect for each other.

Frankly, while agreement is good so far as it goes, honest disagreement, reasonably exchanged, often serves the greater purpose of honing skills and furthering research.

In a round-about way, I am simply appreciating the fact that disagreement of the sort we are having is infinitely preferable to that of the more vindictive and destructive sort which has been far too much in evidence, and in all of our faces, of late.

Where in this budget is the “rainy day” fund for all the upcoming disasters like Sandy and Katrina. This is as budgets go a status quo pie in the sky budget that ignores all the warning signs of a teetering economy and instead plugs a few holes in the dike while ignoring the cracks. All the happy people living large on the wealth effect from their 401k’s will be Green Party members next year when the market crashes. I want my Green New Deal.

Oh it was discussed in the context of social programs offered more bang for the government buck but very little was offered up in terms of saying that YES, even people making really small sums of money are job creators. The reason Walmart is so successful is because there is economic impact from minimum wage earners.

I’ve read your post four times and I don’t understand a word of it. Yesterday, DDay used the word “veal pen” to describe inside-the-beltway thinking. Today you’re using it to describe the liberal left? Give us a clue.

The “Left” in this country IS the Democrats. Or at least those few of us who pretend to be a “Left” are Democrats. Did you miss that part of the election where Jill Stein gained 0.3% of the popular vote?

If your Democrats let her on the stage for a real debate, if free speech were free, if you didn’t need a Billion $$$ to run for office and majority actually ruled I could accept your statement as credible.

It’s a false conflict Republicans vs. Democrats. We saw in the debates no difference on any important issues. It is rich vs. everyone else and we are getting screwed every day and wasting time arguing about the kabuki show in Washington D.C.

The liberal left should be written as “liberal” left. Many of those people herded themselves into the veal pen gladly in order to maintain their positions in o’s hierarchy. Organizations that had wanted the US to move away from the w admin way, such as moveon (many invited to o’s round table yesterday), quickly fell into line with his continuing the w policies.

I think cassiodorus’ point is that the people who have the advantages of messaging and packaging sound bites for regular folks were “Democrats.”

The larger point being that even if Jill Stein were to agree with the framing that poor people are also job creators (although we can certainly argue that the jobs they create will/will not be “good” jobs) most of the country wouldn’t have heard it because the two major parties have created their own monopoly on messaging. that’s why Democrats AND Republicans say fiscal cliff even though it isn’t a cliff at all.

I completely expect there to be primary challenges though. You can’t reform something by keeping it the same.

Warner, Pryor and Landreiu are all on the record as willing to cut the social safety net and all up for re election in 2014. Seems to me that if the reform folks want to be taken seriously then they’ll have to find some people to challenge these folks.

Some of us here went for Jill Stein because we could not stomach voting for evil, whether lesser or greater. I think that it may be hard for those who voted for either one of the uniparty candidates (especially o) will find it hard to change their view toward a third party. It is similar to those who backed our invasion of Iraq versus those of us opposed to the invasion: the backers will never forgive us for being right.
We can’t, however, keep pointing this faux pas out to o’s backers because they will become more and more adamant that it was the right thing to do. We have to be conciliatory and try to find our agreements, not our differences.

You’re correct. Those dims that really want change will have that opportunity. We can only hope that they show themselves. Maybe FDL can be a center of action for the primaries as in CT for Ned Lamont and in AR against Blanche Lincoln.

In less than 4 years one side of the debate is going to have more facts to back their argument. If the people who voted for Obama and said they’d be forcing him and the Democrats left were serious then we should see either primary challenges or progressive legislation. If that doesn’t happen then the third party advocates will have more ammunition when it comes to arguing that reforming from the inside isn’t nearly as realistic and pragmatic as it was portrayed last go around.

As someone from the left I pride myself in being open minded. I’m looking forward to seeing whether those that say inside reform can put action to their words. If they can’t I’ll certainly be standing by to remind them come election time of how their strategy is panning out.

Congratulations! You and me and a few other people here now qualify as ten genuine leftists on the Internet.

Now I suppose the vote could have been completely rigged, and that maybe in reality Jill Stein made it to the 5% threshold and qualified for FEC funding. But I rather doubt it, and it might serve us to understand how few of us there actually are.

Read the Green Party platform and speeches by Jill Stein and compare that to Obama’s budget proposal. The “left” has no relationship with the Democratic Party leaders or their policies. You are like the frog slowly boiled to death if you look at this budget proposal and think the Democrats are the left. Millionaires arguing with billionaires over how to treat the servants is not progressive and not proper discussion unless you live in an aristocracy that doesn’t value all human life. All men(people) are created equal is what we should be striving toward.

I disagree with the premise that we have no relationship. The truth is that they will be in power in the Senate and the WH for the next 4 years. We’re going to pretty much be forced to have a relationship because of the power that the party wields on policy. That being said, the relationship we have does not have to be a wine and roses relationship. Instead our relationship ought to be one that heaps praise and criticism depending on the circumstance (and no Dem reformers it is not third party advocates responsibility to pull the party you put into office to the left, that’s a responsibility that is solely yours.) We also independantly should be forming relationships with alternate avenues to govern to make it clear to Democrats that they can not do as they please in this particular relationship, not without consequences.

thanks. We deal with the uselessness of the Democratic Party all the time here in DC where our local party machine has completely sold out to the plutocrats (developers, private equity asshats, sports team owners, media owners). DC for Democracy (our local DFA affiliate) never participates in the DC Democratic State Committee directly, although a few of our members hold low-level slots on ward committees. Far more of our members serve as non-partisan commissioners on our Advisory Neighborhood Commissions than serve in official Democratic Party positions.

I’ll stand by my statement because the Democrats will do nothing (whatever “we” do) that could be described as “left” in the traditional sense of the term in the next four years unless we go into the Depression some like myself fear is inevitable due to the greed and avarice of the ruling class. There is precious little difference between a rich Republican and a rich Democrat and money is controlling right now.

And it’s not that I had any delusions that she’d pull any upset. I just won’t compromise any more. I struggled with my vote for Sherrod Brown, but in that case I decided to trust man over machine. Probably the last Democrat I’ll ever vote for.

Granted, but what is Obama saying to the Big Bidness leaders and to the Repub leaders, in private, where he tends toward more truthfulness?

Isn’t he meeting today with these?

We’ll find out. At least in the past when Obama or his surrogates met with anyone remotely progressive it was to get them on-board and and “with the program” with proposals that sold out their constituencies. The deal crammed down labor unions on health care is a prime example of that.

So if he is saying different things to different sides, one side will come out knowing they’ve been lied to. I don’t know what mailing lists everyone else is on, but I’ve been besieged with emails from progressive groups asking me to sign petitions telling Obama not to slash SS/Medicare/Medicaid and other programs. So at least some of “the Left” (however one construes that) no longer trusts Obama.

I’m on mailing lists from both sides of the aisle. It should be interesting to hear what an organization like the Chamber of Commerce is being told about the “fiscal cliff” in comparison to what progressive groups were told.

Perhaps we are few, indeed, cassiodorus. However, we are now aware that there are those of us, however few in number we might seem, who dare to think and act outside of the box.

We should, I consider, rejoice that we are not alone, and seek to actively join forces and conscience with each other. For always, it is the committed few who make all of the difference …

While I know not how you look upon this past election, for myself, I am heartened that as many of us as did chose, consciously and deliberately, despite howls of protest and shrieks of derision, to seek other options.

As beginnings go, it is a good and a strong one …

Looking at those thoughtful human beings here, who courageously chose something better, someone more honest and humane, I count and consider myself to be in the very best of company.

Referring to rebellion, whether it be the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement, he says the following:

The establishment asks: What are their demands? Why do they hate us? What do they want? The oppressor can never hear the answer, for the answer is always the same—we seek to destroy your power.

Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. All of the detractors who whine that “Occupy is stupid; they don’t have a single message” need to understand this concise message. The purpose is to destroy the political power of the elite.

The only problem is, “destruction” is not a positive act, in and of itself. The message is anarchist in nature. The message needs to contain an outcome which is not simply destructive.

We seek to wrest power from big money and to give it back to we the people.

Time will tell. I feel confident that I’m not going to regret my choice for voting third party. It’ll be up to the Democratic party to convince me that they will earn my vote for 2014 because they can do better by me. It’ll be up to them to convince the people who did vote for them that they are worth their vote. If I were a betting person I’d say that if they don’t do that then they’ll be another portion of the party voting third party in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

The “Left” in this country IS the Democrats. Or at least those few of us who pretend to be a “Left” are Democrats. Did you miss that part of the election where Jill Stein gained 0.3% of the popular vote?

You gotta start somewhere.

What I don’t understand is Democratic tribalism. Here in TN, Romney won TN by a 59.5-39% margin, 1.45 million votes to 950,000. In the little-discussed and little-polled Senate race, Bob Corker (R) beat Mark Clayton (D?) by a greater margin, 65 % – 30 %, with almost 1.5 million votes to 700,00. The Green Party candidate for Senate, Martin Pleasant, only got 1.6 %.

Note I said “Mark Clayton (D?)”. That’s because Mark Clayton is a right-wing homophobe fruitloop who would fit in better with the Tea Party than with the Democrats. He only got in via a low-turnout Dem primary where no one famous wanted to take on Corker. So we had two rightwingers running for office.

So–assuming that the 950,000 people who voted for Obama were overall more “liberal” than the ones who voted for Romney–where did Clayton’s votes come from?

Did Democrats simply vote for Clayton due to ignorance of what the man actually stood for?

Did they vote for Corker (thus largely negating their votes for Obama, or at least what they hoped he would produce) in order to lead off the “greater evil?” that Clayton represented? Did Tea Party Republicans similarly vote for Clayton in order to vote for someone better representing them?

Why didn’t most of those 39 % Obama voters vote for Martin Pleasant, the Green Party candidate, who would have far better represented their views. Even if you’re a die-hard Democratic loyalist, you’d realize that Pleasant like Bernie Sander would have caucused with the Democrats.

I mean, there was an opportunity here, with Corker and Clayton splitting the right-wing vote and letting a progressive pick up a seat in a red state.

Agree and the tipping point is close unless multi national greed, global warming, and austerity induced crashes of the Euro and Dollar somehow go away. Historically in the U.S. third parties issues and platform planks have found a home in one of the major parties once we reach crisis mode. Our purpose is to exist and refine the policy so someone else can take credit for it when it is needed. I would happily let Obama take credit for the New Green Deal if he implemented it because it would be the right thing to do for the majority.

I’m quite well aware that the Federal-level political class is completely made up of conservatives. The state and local-level political class is a more ambiguous affair. Here I refer to the conversational Left — those who, as the pollsters say, “self-identify” as liberals, progressives, or what have you.

Sadly, I think a lot of the party faithful are not nearly as smart as they think they are. As I pointed out during the election season, Democrats within the party have absolutely no problem with supporting a third party if they think it is in their best interests to do so. Progressive activists ought to be doing the same. It is not their responsibilty to drag candidates across the finish line. It’s their responsibility to work to bring the issues and policies important to them across the finish line. You don’t do that if you are in a state of perpetual compromise and the candidates know you’ll support them no matter where they stand on those issues for the sake of saying “I won.”

With that I totally agree; it is the people in government at the local level that respond to it’s citizens first. Look at Sandy and Mayors were more important than Governors and President Obama. Voting for Jill Stein wasn’t my only vote and it should not be denigrated because she had no chance to win.

Their tribalism, both (D) and (R), defies logic. You can see this in the way they talk — it’s no longer about policy anymore, but rather about how the (D) Grand Bargain serves as some sort of magic talisman against evil (R) policy.

“. . . otherwise the great mass of the public wouldn’t be in such an obvious conspiracy against itself.”

Why not? People do things like this all the time. The mechanism by which it takes place is authoritarianism assisted in tremendous measure by the propaganda of the TV. Ye gods, the TV can get folks to pay more for bottled tap water than they do for gasoline. Surely it can get them to self-destuct in other ways.